>>PREVIEW
OLD SCHOOL FESTIVAL
Mob Hit Productions
Runs until June 10
Vertigo Studio (Calgary Tower)
Less than a decade ago, television audiences marvelled at the prospect of computer-generated celebrity ghosts posthumously hocking vacuum cleaners. The example was extreme, of course, but it pointed out one of the most interesting quirks of the postmodern age – why should the past remain behind us, when we can recast it into something brand new?
Without including exhumed celebrities, theatre company Mob Hit Productions is asking exactly that question with its Old School Festival, tackling theatre, music and film in Vertigo’s Studio Theatre.
"It was just really interesting to ask artists, ‘What does new meets old mean to you? What is it like to redefine or reinterpret classic works for your particular discipline?’" says artistic director Lawrence Leong. "We got some pretty interesting answers. For some artistic disciplines and genres it was a lot easier to answer than others."
Over the festival’s nine days, Mob Hit will present a program composed of a variety of answers to the festival’s central question, including a stylized theatrical adaptation, intimate concerts and classic silent films remixed by live DJs.
Translated by Leong and Ethan Cole, Molière’s Tartuffe – a 17th century comedy of image and deceit – will anchor each of the festival’s days, preceding either "Sound and Fury" or "Sweet Silence," the festival’s musical and filmic components. Though Leong concedes that his days of French immersion are far enough behind him that he needed a dictionary during the translation, he describes the production as a stylized haute couture rendering of Paris, sans the verse-like structure of the original script.
"When I read Molière in French, it’s amazing," he says. "It’s 12 beats per bar, Alexandrian verse, rhyming couplets. And you think, ‘Fuck, how can someone write this way?’ But it doesn’t translate well. Constant rhyming couplets make me think of Dr. Seuss. In English I think they become more of a problem or a challenge for the artist to either play with or overcome, and I don’t know if that was what Molière wanted, or what he wanted to say."
Following the day’s performance of Tartuffe, audiences will be able to take in either an intimate, 100-seat concert with local bands Wade, Jay Crocker or the Polygesters, or view classic movies such as Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis or a collection of Buster Keaton films – all of whose soundtracks will be remixed live. But while both "Sound and Fury" and "Sweet Silence" are uniquely focused on reinterpreting existing material, there is a particularly interesting vein in the notion of revisiting films – an ostensibly static medium that is still a relative newcomer to the process of reinterpretation.
"These films… they’re finally getting to the point where they’re almost a century old," notes Scott Roberts, who is producing "Sound and Fury." "This medium’s finally gotten old enough that, just as plays and music have been reinterpreted for centuries, finally film is getting to the point where more and more people are reaching back. Finding the meaning and resonance in those works that have bearing on what’s happening today, or reinforcing their importance."
With the ever-increasing limits of copyright terms extending by the decade (see Disney’s beloved characters) and art’s continued fascination with its past, Mob Hit’s festival asks a question that is not easily answered. One thing is clear, at least: creating new work is more than simple grave-robbing. Even if vacuum-selling advertisers don’t feel the same way, there is still new ground to break.
"It’s kind of fun to see how many rules you can break and still be true to the text," says Roberts.
"If you don’t ask those questions – ‘How many rules can you break or how can you interpret this piece?’ – then why are you doing this?" asks Leong. |
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